Books by Alan Ayckbourn

Book SynopsisEngland''s comic master is in a black comic mode in this West End hit about our fascination with technology. It is sometime quite soon in a steel shuttered, slovenly flat in a no go area of North London where punks rule deserted streets. Here, a lonely composer sits surrounded by high tech equipment. His only company is a robot nanny, and she''s on the blink. He desperately wants to reclaim his teenage daughter and enlists an out of work actress to implement a cunning plan he''s evolved to impress his estranged wife and a wired for sound child welfare officer. When things don''t work out, Jerome has to improvise... It''s amazing what can be done with a few micro chips and a screwdriver!

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Book SynopsisNow we don''t want to start Christmas like this, do we?Cheating at snakes and ladders, fighting over comic books, a bungled infidelity beneath the tree. Christmas has arrived in the Bunker household along with family and friends. But as the children lurk just out of sight, it''s the adults who are letting the side down. I couldn''t. Not in our sitting-room. Not in front of the television. Somewhere else. Presiding over the festivities are two warring uncles, one a kindly, incompetent doctor with an interminable puppet show to perform; the other a bullying retired security guard who dominates the TV, brings toy guns for his nieces and determines there''s a thief in their midst. Alan Ayckbourn''s masterly Season''s Greetings offers a seriously entertaining look at the misery and high jinks of an average family Christmas. The play opens at the National Theatre, London, in December 2010.Three times I caught him at it. Rippi

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Book SynopsisThe Revengers'' ComediesA hugely entertaining pitch that recalls the old movies to which it frequently pays homage - Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, Kind Hearts and Coronets - and expands after intermission to reveal an immensely disturbing vision of contemporary middle-class England poisoned by the rise of economic ruthlessness and the collapse of ethics. New York Times Things We Do for LoveLloyds Private Banking Playwright of the Year AwardOne of his best, his most shockingly and uproariously funny: a cruel and hilarious masterpiece of tragic comedy and comic tragedy. Sunday TimesHouse & GardenThe triumph of his ingenuity lies in the fact that you have to see both plays . . . A second time round, in whichever order you take them, characters will deepen, while those you know become the background. It is a superb Ayckbourn joke that a comedy about non-communication should depend on the shar

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Book SynopsisSnake in the GrassA terrific piece - brilliant, bizarre and yet totally believable... In fact, it''s more than classic; it''s close to the top of its class. Yorkshire PostIf I Were YouA blissfully funny comedy that''s also filled with sadness, a devilishly simple theatrical idea that spins out all kinds of complex truths about human nature. Daily TelegraphLife and BethA wise, humane, funny play about the inevitability of death and the continuity of life. GuardianMy Wonderful DayA transformation happens as magical as the most magnificent pantomime transformation anyone could ever imagine... the playwright dissolves the paraphernalia of our adult selves and uncovers that space inside each of us that is still the child we once were. ObserverLife of RileyAs perceptive as ever... Ayckbourn has once again achieved a satisfyingly rich, tragi-comic complexity. Daily TelegrapTrade Review"Snake in the Grass": "A terrific piece - brilliant, bizarre and yet totally believable ...In fact, it's more than classic; it's close to the top of its class". ("Yorkshire Post"). "If I Were You": "A blissfully funny comedy that's also filled with sadness, a devilishly simple theatrical idea that spins out all kinds of complex truths about human nature". ("Daily Telegraph"). "Life and Beth": "A wise, humane, funny play about the inevitability of death and the continuity of life". ("Guardian"). "My Wonderful Day": "A transformation happens as magical as the most magnificent pantomime transformation anyone could ever imagine ...the playwright dissolves the paraphernalia of our adult selves and uncovers that space inside each of us that is still the child we once were". ("Observer"). "Life of Riley": "As perceptive as ever ...Ayckbourn has once again achieved a satisfyingly rich, tragi-comic complexity". ("Daily Telegraph").

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Book SynopsisLove stories yet to happen, in a future filled with surprises.Who is the amorous stranger, Titus, who materialises in young Grace''s bedroom? Can she believe he is who he says he is? For her parents, Franklin and Martha, does love everlasting still hold true if death is postponed indefinitely? Can lawyer Lorraine, who prides herself on her infallibility, have finally discovered the ideal partner, one who is also never wrong? Will lonely secretary Sylvia, after unhappy affairs with everyone from deep sea divers to space shuttle pilots, ever find her Mr Right?A comedy with its head in the future and its heart in the past, Alan Ayckbourn''s Surprises premiered in July 2012 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in a co-production with Chichester Festival Theatre.

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Book SynopsisMeet three couples in their three kitchens on the Christmas Eves of three successive years. The lower class but very much up and coming Hopcrofts are in their bright new, gadget filled kitchen anxiously giving a little party for their bank manager and his wife and an architect neighbor. Next there are the architect and his wife in their neglected, untidy flat. Then the bank manager and his wife are in their large, slightly modernized, old Victorian style kitchen. Running like a dark thread through the wild comedy of behind the scenes disasters at Christmas parties is the story of the advance of the Hopcrofts to material prosperity and independence and the decline of the others. In the final stages the little man is well and truly on top, with the others, literally and unnervingly, dancing to his tune.

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Book SynopsisThe suburban house of the Bakers'' adjoins a recreation field, which is useful since football and cricket play a large part in the story. Peter, who works for Graham, brings his fiancee to the house and Graham, as usual, makes a bee-line for her. However, it is Mrs. Baker''s brother, Leonard, to whom Joan strays. Leonard, poetic, a fumbler, who moons around holding conversations with the garden gnome, has always roused the bullying Graham''s malice and scorn, who is horrified when he catches the younger man very much with Joan.-2 women, 3 men

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Book SynopsisThe leading lights of the village have decided to hold a pageant of local history based on a somewhat vague event, The Massacre of the Pendon Twelve. But there''s a young left wing teacher on the committee who decides to turn it into a rally for proletarian revolution. Committee meetings become symbolic battlefields for conflicting views - the right wing faction being led by the Chairman''s conservative wife. The event turns into a violent confrontation between the two extremes, with cataclysmic results. Police intervention brings matters to a relatively quiet conclusion, but already another pageant - Romans versus Britons - seems an attractive possibility.

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Book SynopsisIn this play, Annie has arranged to spend an illicit weekend with her sister Ruth''s husband Norman, and for this reason, suitably disguised, has asked her elder brother Reg and his wife Sarah to look after their widowed mother and the house. As it happens the seduction, thought or planned, by each of the six characters never takes place either. Table Manners is part of The Norman Conquests trilogy.

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Book SynopsisAnnie, the Cinderella of the family, lives in the shabby Victorian vicarage type house where the family was brought up. Reg, her brother, and his wife Sarah come to stay for a week end so that she may go away for a rest. The general idea is that Annie ought to pair off with Tom. But for this weekend it is Norman, the raffish assistant librarian husband of Annie''s sister Ruth, with whom she planned to go. They were to meet secretly but Norman turns up early. When Annie calls the whole thing off Norman decides to stay on at the house and gets roaring drunk.3 women, 3 men

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Book SynopsisIn this play, Sarah''s desperate attempts to have a nice, civilized week end culminate, not surprisingly, in disaster. Ruth, Norman''s wife, is summoned but Norman still contrives to cause havoc involving, finally, all three women. Matters are not helped by such events as the slow thinking Tom mistaking Ruth''s intentions during a conversation they have together. Eventually the horrific week end draws to a close.3 women, 3 men

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Book SynopsisAn entertainment on marriage by George Melly, Alan Ayckbourn, James Saunders, Harold Pinter, Alun Owen, Fay Weldon, David Campton, Lyndon Brook and John Bowen.1 woman, 1 man or flexible casting

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Book SynopsisThere are no less than eight intimate exchanges in this ingenious tour de farce and each has two different endings; you can see Intimate Exchanges sixteen times and not see the same play twice! And one actor and one actress play all 10 characters. This is Ayckbourn''s most unusual look yet at the foibles of middle class living.-1 woman, 1 man

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Book SynopsisThe comic poet of middle class life, always so very funny, goes deeper and darker in this triumphant play about a housewife named Susan who is married to a boring cleric named George. After getting knocked out by stepping on the tooth end of a garden rake, Susan experiences hilarious hallucinations in which her oppressive and boring everyday life is replaced by a fantasy in which she is an ideal wife and mother with an ideal family. While her real family treats her with condescension and apathy, her fantasy family dresses in lovely white, always drinks champagne, lives in a stately home and tells her that she is wonderful. Eventually, the fantasy family becomes nightmarish and Susan begins to realize that she is going mad.

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Book SynopsisJack McCraken has the opportunity of a lifetime: he is the new head of a family furniture business and believes he will initiate a new age of honesty and integrity. He quickly learns that everyone else involved in the enterprise has a vested interest in maintaining business as usual, rife with dishonesty and deceit.

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Book SynopsisAlan Ayckbourn''s version of the first of the famous Aldwych farces was produced by the National Theatre. It is the story of an unsuccessful inventor who inherits the life interest in a fortune which is to revert on his death to his cousin George Maitland. As Cousin George is thought to have died abroad, the inventor has the brilliant idea of dying so that he can resurrect himself as his cousin and avoid paying his enormous debts. Complications arise in the form of George''s wife, another Maitland imposter (the butler''s brother) and finally the real George Maitland himself!-4 women, 6 men

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Book SynopsisThis intricate time traveling comic thriller by the British master of farcical comedy delighted London and New York audiences. A London sex specialist from the future stumbles into a murder plot that sends her, compliments of a unique set of hotel doors, traveling back in time. She and two women who were murdered in 1998 and 1978 race back and forth in time trying to rewrite history and prevent their own violent ends. The frantic race begins when Poopay is hired for an evening at the Regal Hotel by an old man who eschews a fling in favour of confessing his role in the demise of his wives. Now a target, Poopay flees into the vestibule and somehow triggers the time machine.

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Book SynopsisLooking at Edward Gray''s three daughters and their unsuitable husbands, it is difficult to disagree with his pronouncement that we all marry the wrong person. It is also impossible not to laugh at the results hilariously portrayed in this early play by the master of English comedy that is being published for the first time.-4 women, 4 men

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Book Synopsis> Comedy Alan AyckbournCharacters: 3 male, 3 femaleInterior A thunderstorm. In a windswept country house a family of failures wrangles over a will: a detective who has never solved a case; a writer, an artist and a composer whose works have never been published, shown or performed, and a dysfunctional teenager. Here are the prime ingredients for a murder mystery, but this diversion is by Alan Ayckbourne and it has a number of surprises. The victim is not who it should be, the murder''s identity changes overnight and the thrills are leavened with tongue in cheek humor and ironic comment.

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Book SynopsisTelevision producer Jill Rillington is taping a documentary, which will reunite Vic Parks with Douglas Beechey. Seventeen years ago, Douglas inadvertently foiled Vic''s last bank robbery, during which Vic shot a teller in the face. Vic, a callous boor, served his time and then exploited his celebrity status to become a wealthy television personality. Douglas married the maimed teller and hero and victim fell into shabby obscurity. Now, at Vic''s luxurious Mediterranean villa, Jill''s hopes for a fiery confrontation are fading because amiable Douglas shows no envy or bitterness and happy people make rotten telly material. Will Vic ever receive his just deserts?

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Book SynopsisHenry Bell has come to the Albert Bridge to throw himself off because he has lost his wife and his job. Instead, he saves Karen Knightly who has thrown herself off the bridge already and is dangling by her caught coat. They spend a long night driving. Henry learns that Karen has been jilted by a lover who has gone back to his wife. She suggests revenge as a way to heal their emotional wounds: she will fix Henry''s dreadful former boss and Henry must ruin her ex lover''s wife.-12 women, 11 men

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Book SynopsisAn ingenious set greets the audience of this award winning play: the cross section of a Victorian house that has been divided into three flats. The owner, a fastidious, elegant executive named Barbara, contentedly occupies the ordered, male free ground floor visible in its entirety. The basement ceiling can be seen and this is were Gilbert, a boorish postman and handyman, is painting a nude study of his landlady. Barbara is letting Nikki, a schoolfriend, and her fiance use the upstairs flat even though she has taken an instant dislike to him. Ever life''s victim, Nikki is destined to suffer yet again when Barbara succumbs to an unexpected and violent passion.-2 women, 2 men

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Book SynopsisFour typical Ayckbourn misfits are playing a Dungeons and Dragons type game in a suburban living room. Stanley, Hazel, Warren and Rick make the weekly escape from their real life nightmares into a role-playing board game peopled by dragons and monsters. A safe world where the dangers are of their own imagining; where they are free to become heroes of their own devising. But how clear is the dividing line between what they choose to be and what they really are? What would it take for them to lose sight of it altogether?-4 women, 4 men

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Book SynopsisBenjamin Cooper provides comfort and satisfaction to his wealthy patients, by improving their good looks with the aid of surgery. One of his patients is Angie Dell, a model at the peak of her powers. Her charms do not escape Benjamin, nor his old friend and former mentor, Hravic Zyergfoovc.

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Book Synopsis2 Comedies / 7m, 7f, extras / Int./Ext.An unprecedented theatre event: two plays take place simultaneously in the same theatre but in different auditoriums. Characters walk off one set and onto the other throughout and yet each portion is a complete theatre experience. In HOUSE, two upper-crust marriages are in hilarious upheaval, the awkward confusion of young love abounds, a devious politician has bizarre ulterior motives land a French film star imbibes one too many drinks. And what is going on in the GARDEN? More hilarity. Note: These two plays MUST be performed simultaneously in by the same cast in adjacent auditoriums. Perhaps his [Ayckbourn''s] greatest work. An engaging, high precision production.-Daily Telegraph It''s audacious, crazy and altogether brilliant.-Times

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Book SynopsisMiriam has cared for her father in the family home during his vituperative last years with the help of a creepily polite nurse, Alice. On Father's death, Miriam's older sister, handsome, divorced Annabel, comes home after over thirty years in Tasmania to find Daddy has left the bulk of his fortune to her. Alice complains to Annabel that Miriam has sacked her and is intent upon blackmail, having evidence, she says, that Miriam did away with the old man. Miriam and Annabel join forces against Alice and the blackmailer's body is soon hurtling down the well, but all does not end there.

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Book SynopsisFans of his Ernie''s Incredible Illucinations are sure to enjoy this story. Suzy lives in a cottage with her mother and her dog, Neville. Suave but sinister Mr. Accousticus moves into the big house across the street and Neville suddenly loses his bark. Suzy is certain the new neighbor is responsible so she and Neville search his house. What happens next? It''s up to the audience in this imaginative tale.-8 women or men

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Book SynopsisDue to an unfortunate triple booking, three storytellers, Peter, Paul and Percy, arrive simultaneously each to tell his own story. After some acrimony, Percy wins out and is soon telling his story - a Victorian yarn featuring, to his dismay, Paul who has hijacked the leading role. Soon Peter in turn is continuing Percy''s unresolved fable only to find Percy appearing in this. In due course, Peter appears in Paul''s gothic story (an extension of Peter''s forties tales) and together they reach a surprisingly happy conclusion.8 women, 9 men

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Book SynopsisFred is waiting for the show to start. The Players arrive: Nell, Bethany, Talitha, Jenkin, Albert and a strange mechanized creature, Kevin on Keyboards. They tell Fred that they are slaves of the Storytellers who control their every move. Once they had a champion, Flavius, who nearly managed to wrest storytelling control back into their hands where it belongs. The Storytellers arrive: Great Aunt Repetitus, Uncle Erraticus and Uncle Oblivious. The Players react fearfully and the stories begin.-4 women, 7 men

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Book SynopsisEight years of macaroni and cheese for breakfast, lunch and supper...It''s enough to drive a boy crazy - until a new, unexpected, and rather dangerous creature arrives on Callisto 5.1 woman, 2 men

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Book SynopsisMurganah loves Ahmed, the Sultan''s youngest son, but feeling herself rejected, she invokes the help of dark supernatural forces to regain him. When she finally loses him to another she seeks a terrible revenge.3 women, 7 men

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Book SynopsisThe reigning king of English comedy strikes off in a new direction with this gleeful fantasy. A couple is preparing for an al fresco party while their hapless ex son in law is holed up in their summer house, drinking off his divorce while he completes illustrations for a new edition of Beauty and the Beast. When he conjures Belle to life and she appears in the garden unable to understand English unless it is sung, her fantastical presence wreaks havoc with the all too real lives around her.3 women, 5 men

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Book SynopsisThis futuristic musical is set in a small-town railway station, sometime all too soon. Harry Wooller, a vicar, is looking for sponsorship for his group''s musical Mystery play. His call is intercepted by a dubious but immensely powerful source - Valda/Valder who alternates between male and female forms. Artistry is soon compromised; this drastic interference forces the group to reveal their past deeds, and recognize the need for change.5 women, 4 men

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